prescription for civil war

Al Jazeera English - Focus - 'A prescription for civil war'
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http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/12/2009121311331278355.html
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'A prescription for civil war'
By Jon Elmer in Bethlehem
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Allegations of misconduct have been made against Palestinian security services [GALLO/GETTY]
Abu Abdullah has never been charged with a crime, but he has been arrested by
Palestinian security forces so many times in the past two years that he has lost
count.
He has been arrested at work, in the market, on the street, and, more than once,
during violent raids by masked men who burst into his home and seized him in
front of his family.
Deep in the heart of the Deheishe refugee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem,
Abu Abdullah describes in detail the beatings he has endured in custody, the
numerous cold, sleepless nights in cramped and filthy cells, the prolonged periods
bound in painful stress positions, and the long hours of aggressive questioning.
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"The interrogations always begin the same way," Abu Abdullah explains. "They
demand to know who I voted for in the last election."
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Abu Abdullah is not alone. Since Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's
caretaker government took power in Ramallah in June 2007, stories like Abu
Abdullah's have become commonplace in the West Bank.
The arrests are part of a wider plan being executed by Palestinian security forces trained and funded by American and European backers - to crush opposition and
consolidate the Fatah-led government's grip on power in the West Bank.
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The government of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is bolstered by
thousands of newly trained police and security forces whose stated aim is to
eliminate Islamist groups that may pose a threat to its power - namely Hamas and
their supporters.
Under the auspices of Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton, the US security
coordinator, these security forces receive hands-on training from Canadian, British
and Turkish military personnel at a desert training centre in Jordan.
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The programme has been carefully coordinated with Israeli security officials.
Since 2007 the Jordan International Police Training Center has trained and
deployed five Palestinian National Security Force battalions in the West Bank.
By the end of Dayton's appointment in 2011, the $261mn project will see 10 new
security battalions, one for each of the nine West Bank governorates and one unit
in reserve.
Their aim is clear. Speaking before a House of Representatives subcommittee in
2007, Dayton described the project as "truly important to advance our national
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interests, deliver security to Palestinians, and preserve and protect the interests of
the state of Israel".
Others are even more explicit about what the force is for. When Nahum Barnea, a
senior Israeli defence correspondent, sat in on a top-level coordinating meeting
between Palestinian and Israeli commanders in 2008, he says he was stunned by
what he heard.
"Hamas is the enemy, and we have decided to wage an all-out war," Barnea quoted
Majid Faraj, then the head of Palestinian military intelligence, as telling the Israeli
commanders. "We are taking care of every Hamas institution in accordance with
your instructions."
After the takeover
When he arrived in the last days of 2005,
Dayton's assignment was to create a
Palestinian security force ostensibly tasked
with confronting the Palestinian resistance.
The project began in Gaza.
Sean McCormack, a state department
spokesman at the time, explained Dayton's
role as "the real down in the weeds,
blocking and tackling work of helping to
build up the security forces".
Ten new security battalions will be created under
the Dayton project [GALLO/GETTY]
But within weeks of his arrival, things
began to fall apart. Hamas' decisive January 2006 election victory ushered in a
crippling international blockade on the Palestinians in Gaza. Soon after, the
security forces of Hamas and Fatah began fighting in the streets, culminating in
Hamas' June 2007 takeover of the enclave.
Dayton's initial aims lay in tatters, and while Fayyad became prime minister in a
'caretaker' government in Ramallah, a new security strategy was formulated.
As a grim status-quo established itself in Gaza, Dayton's new mission became clear.
The job of the security coordinator was now "to prevent a Hamas takeover in the
West Bank," according to Michael Eisenstadt, Dayton's former plans officer.
A coordinated attack on Hamas' civilian apparatus was launched immediately after
the takeover in Gaza in June 2007. Major-General Gadi Shamni, the head of the
Israeli army's central command, led an initiative to target the base of Hamas'
support in the West Bank. The plan, dubbed the Dawa Strategy, involved
pin-pointing Hamas' extensive social welfare apparatus, the lynchpin of their
popularity amongst many Palestinians.
Dr Omar Abdel Razeq, a former finance minister in the short-lived Hamas
government, explains the effect this had. "When we talk about the infrastructure
we are talking about the societies and the cooperatives and the institutions that
were to help the poor," he says. "They finished [off] the infrastructure of Hamas."
Israeli Brigadier-General Michael Herzog, the chief of staff to Ehud Barak, Israel's
defence minister, summed up the Israeli view of the project. "[Dayton's] doing a
great job," he said. "We're very happy with what he's doing."
Torture allegations
The Dawa Strategy has seen more than 1,000 Palestinians jailed by Palestinian
Authority (PA) forces. The arrests - though concentrated on Hamas and its
suspected allies - have touched a broad swathe of Palestinian society, and all
political factions.
They have targeted social workers, students, teachers, journalists. There have
been regular raids on mosques, university campus' and charities, and repeated
allegations of torture carried out by US and European-funded security officers,
including several deaths in custody.
In October, Abbas issued a decree against the most violent forms of torture used by
his forces and replaced the interior minister, General Abdel Razak al-Yahya, a
long-time US and Israeli partner, with Said Abu Ali.
While noting an improvement since the decree, human rights workers say the
changes are not enough. "There is still no due process, still no legal justifications
for many of the arrests and civilians are still being brought before military courts,"
says Salah Moussa, an Independent Commission for Human Rights attorney.
Major-General Adnan Damiri, a spokesperson for the Palestinian security forces,
acknowledged wrongdoing but attributed the acts to individuals and not to a policy.
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Al Jazeera English - Focus - 'A prescription for civil war'
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"Sometimes there are officers or soldiers who have made mistakes in this way,
with torture," Damiri said. "But now we are punishing them."
Damiri cited 42 cases of torture in the past three months that resulted in various
forms of reprimand, including loss of rank. Six soldiers were dismissed for their
acts.
But on the streets, the mood is darkening as the foreign-backed security services
tighten their grip on the West Bank.
Naje Odeh, a leftist community leader in Deheishe who operates a thriving youth
centre in the camp, characterised the security apparatus as akin to the US-allied
regimes in Jordan and Egypt. "If you speak out, you are arrested," he explains.
"This behaviour will destroy our society."
Odeh says the security forces carrying out the raids know that what they are doing
is wrong. "Why are they masked?" he asks rhetorically. "Because we know these
people. We know their families. They are ashamed of what they are doing."
Some fear that the behaviour of the US and EU-trained security forces will spark
potentially deadly confrontation.
"If they attack your mosques, your classrooms, your societies, you can be patient,
but for how long?" a senior Islamist leader in the West Bank asks.
Abdel Razeq, the former Hamas finance minister, is more explicit in his predictions.
He says: "If the security forces insist on defending the Israelis, this is a prescription
for civil war."
Source: Al Jazeera
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